International Congress of the International Association for Neo-Latin Studies location:Vienna date:2-7 August 2015

Abstract:

In a letter to his friend Marco Aurelio (30 January 1477) Francesco Filelfo (Tolentino 1398 –
Florence 1481) says: Ex universa Italia Ethrusca lingua maxime laudatur. Hoc autem scribendi more utimur iis in rebus quarum memoriam nolumus transferre in posteros. But, in
the preface of the Exercitatiunculae Latinae et Italicae, which were published in 1483 in
Milan, he admits: Legant et edificant diligenter omnes adulescentuli eloquentiae cupidi hoc
exercitatiuncularum genus […] quo duce non solum Latinae linguae flosculos decerpent,
verum etiam ipsius linguae vernaculae, quod non ab re fuerit. In this paper I shall try to
explain this “contradiction” and to reconstruct the opinion Filelfo had about the vernacula
lingua and its relationship with the Latina lingua – with examples from the Exercitatiunculae,
the Epistolae and other works by Filelfo (especially his commentary on Petrarch). I shall also
make a brief comparison between Filelfo’s and other humanists’ ideas about vernacular
language.